CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. - A priest was sentenced to about 3 years in prison Friday after admitting he collected hundreds of child pornography images off the Internet.

Thomas Saloy, 47, an administrator of the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Church in Roosevelt, pleaded guilty in November 2006 to federal charges of having more than 600 illegal images on his computer.

He was arrested as part of a national FBI computer pornography sting. A criminal complaint states that when FBI agents seized computer equipment near Milwaukee in September 2005, they found an e-mail from Saloy, depicting sexually explicit images of boys.

Prosecutors said Saloy acknowledged that he had visited AOL chat rooms and that he had requested and received sexually explicit images of children 15 to 16 years old.

After Saloy's arrest, the Diocese of Rockville Centre said Saloy was placed on administrative leave, which means he may not wear clerical garb, including the Roman collar, and may not celebrate Mass in public. Spokesman Sean Dolan said Friday that Saloy's status with the chuch remains the same. "It's a tragic situation all around, but we do respect the judicial process," he said.